Conversion of Biomass Derivatives to Electricity in Photo Fuel Cells using Undoped and Tungsten-doped Bismuth Vanadate Photoanodes

The photo fuel cell (PFC) is a promising technology for simultaneously converting solar energy and bioenergy into electricity. Here, we present a miniature air-breathing PFC that uses either BiVO4 or W-doped BiVO4 as the photoanode and a Pt/C catalyst as the air-breathing cathode. The PFC exhibited excellent performance under solar illumination and when fed with several types of biomaterial. We found the PFC performance could be significantly enhanced using W-doping into the BiVO4 photoanode. With glucose as the fuel and simulated sunlight (AM1.5G) as the light source, the open-circuit voltage increased from 0.74 to 0.92V, the short-circuit current density rose from 0.46 to 1.62mAcm(-2), and the maximum power density was boosted from 0.05 to 0.38mWcm(-2), compared to a PFC using undoped BiVO4 as the anode.